As I'm sure many of you have noticed, a sort of Gretsch mini-cult has arisen over the last few years here on the Electric subforum
, and the question of where the Korean-made Electromatics stand in terms of tone/quality
vis-a-vis their MIJ Professional Series stablemates is a recurring one; for those who are presently contemplating purchase but still sitting on the fence, I located this side-by-side YouTube demo of a MIK 5420 ($849 street) and a $3K 6120 limited edition:
While everyone's concept of tone is necessarily highly subjective, any fellow AGF'ers who may have read/responded to/taken with a grain of salts (
plural intended 
) any of my own comments can get a better idea of what tones I'm getting/hearing from my own gear, and using as my frame of reference: although I'm strictly guitar-cable-amp I too regularly run mine at moderate volume through a stock '65 Super Reverb RI, also with some classic Fender tube 'verb dialed in (go to around the 15:00 mark where he takes the slapback echo out) but with a set of wound-G flatwounds - 11's on the E-matic, 10's on the MIJ Falcon - to smooth things out a tad in the low end compared to his Elixirs...
The big question: are the Pro Series instruments truly worth the substantial premium over the MIK 5400/5600-Series E-Matics, or would it be a wiser long-term move to go with the lower-price-but-high-quality option as a primary recording/gigging guitar...?
BTW this guy's got some chops, and really knows his way around a Gretsch; listen with an open mind/ears, over a good set of speakers/headphones - without being a spoiler, I think members of
both camps will be quite surprised at the results...